I feel there is a big difference between them; the actor of the second half of (a) is “I”, while that of (b) is “he”. Accordingly, the first one means “I got the phone from my father, and I heard him saying he had to return home immediately.” The second one means “…, and he said that he had to return …”

The evidence is that (b) is a bit unnatural unless it is like the following:父からの電話に出たら，父はいますぐ帰らなければならないと言った。(b2)Further, the following is even more natural.私が父からの電話に出たら，父はいますぐ帰らなければならないと言った。(b3)By contrast, (a) is still natural as it is. Of course, you can write as follows:父からの電話に出たら，父はいますぐ帰らなければならないと言っていた。(a2)However, that is not necessary.

This suggests that 言っていた is a kind of subjective report by a narrator, while 言った is literally to have said.

Posted at Mon Jan 23 14:12:01 UTC 2012]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1280754
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1280754satoshiMon Jan 23 14:12:01 UTC 2012satoshi : The US taught Japan freedom, but ... (2)In addition, Kamel Daoudi has been kept a punishment of deportation for years. After he served his term of imprisonment in France, he has still been watched by the police and forced to stay in France and apart from stations, freeways, and such; though, the French government is bearing all of his expenses. That was once often taken by the Soviet government, which was called banishment to Siberia. It must be old-fashioned in Russia, but still active in France. In Japan, such kind of treatment is absolutely impossible because the US, France, and the UK once taught the Japanese people that it was impossible.

If you want to eat the best French dishes, you have to go to Tokyo. Like that, you have to go to Japan if you want to enjoy western liberalism.

Posted at Mon Jan 23 12:17:00 UTC 2012]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1280521
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1280521satoshiMon Jan 23 12:17:00 UTC 2012satoshi : Tanaka Rie ? Tanaka Lie? (0)I was surprised to learn that a Japanese man who is じょうじ can obtain his passport of Japan in the name of “George”. That is, he can choose among the following:JojiJoujiJohjiGeorge(The regulation has changed in 2008.)

A woman who is りえ can choose among these:RieLie

There seem to be women whose names are 愛 with reading らぶ. (It’s surprising to me.) They can choose from:RabuLoveSo, “Ms. Tanaka Love (田中愛)” is possible, and she can be the same person as “Ms. Tanaka Rabu”.

Instead (?), this kind of a bit odd mugging is not so curious in Japan. According to the press, lately, there were women who were robbed wearing their boots of on the street in Osaka. A mugger, a man, stripped their boots off on the street.

http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0115/OSK201201140191.html

Posted at Sun Jan 15 00:07:27 UTC 2012]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1268044
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1268044satoshiSun Jan 15 00:07:27 UTC 2012satoshi : Tony Blair’s Story is Interesting (0)His father was poor, had a hard time, succeeded, and became a Tory. Tony wanted to change the Labor Party into the party for those people.

Posted at Wed Jan 04 12:15:52 UTC 2012]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1252597
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1252597satoshiWed Jan 04 12:15:52 UTC 2012satoshi : Yet another よく書けている (1)Your friend writes an essayRight thereafter you read it.Right thereafter it burns away.Ten years later you say to him that it is (was?) well written.What should you say?よく書けていた？よく書けている？

The answer is clearly よく書けていた。 This is easy. Next:

Your friend writes an essay.It is in the room A.He is in the room B.You read it in the A.You go to him in the B.You say to him that it is well written.The essay is still in the A.What should you say?よく書けていた？よく書けている？

You can say either. Both are very natural. This suggests this た is not the maker of the past tense. I think this た means you experience something in the past, not something that you are talking about occurs (occurred?) in the past.

Posted at Wed Jan 04 08:14:55 UTC 2012]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1252330
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1252330satoshiWed Jan 04 08:14:55 UTC 2012satoshi : What is the Difference between よく書けた and よく書けている? (8)Though I can give you very limited examples, here is one. I want to hear about your comments. If a friend of yours writes an essay and you say it is well written:よく書けた (a)よく書けている (b)

The sentence (a) must carry the necessary information, but it actually sounds curt or as if you are saying you yourself wrote it well, not he/she did. Instead, the sentence (b) is common. It also can mean you wrote it, but it is not ambiguous. (Because the context definitely determines which it means. Being polysemous is not the same as being ambiguous. However, I don’t know exact technical terms of this.)

I think the difference between (a) and (b) is something like the one between direct and indirect discourses. The sentence (a) tells something as it is a subjective experience of the narrator. Instead, the one (b) tells something as it is an objective observation of the narrator.

By the way, よく書いた。 is as curt as よく書けた, and it is more vague than 書けた. It also can sound like you are great because you done (=finished) it.

Posted at Tue Jan 03 04:31:33 UTC 2012]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1250670
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1250670satoshiTue Jan 03 04:31:33 UTC 2012satoshi : Who is paying for Korean idols in Japan? (11)Posted at Sun Jan 01 08:00:59 UTC 2012]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1248255
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1248255satoshiSun Jan 01 08:00:59 UTC 2012satoshi : Korean Code of Dress and Code of Words (4)
I watched this video on today’s news program that seemed to show a room for a Cabinet meeting in South Korea. The person in the center is the president. What is interesting is that there are two people wearing down jackets. It seems that they are governmental officials. Apart from whether it was cold in the room, I think the dress code in South Korea is more progressive than the one in Japan.

The second video was from a news program in North Korea. She was bitterly criticizing the South Korean president with strict moral phrases. However, she looks as if she's in a state of ecstasy. It seems to be difficult for her to hide her feelings of delight.She said:We won’t eternally deal with the group of the rebels around Lee Myung-bak, who are morally shabby and lack basic human dignity.I don’t know how these words sound in English, but they are extremely funny in Japanese because they are very moral and so the speaker seems like a priest in a new cult.

Posted at Fri Dec 30 11:49:13 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1246022
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1246022satoshiFri Dec 30 11:49:13 UTC 2011satoshi : Nintendo’s Price Dropped by 56% This Year (0)Furthermore, the worst is, needless to say, TEPCO, one of the world’s largest power companies and the owner of the Fukushima Nuclear Plant. It dropped by 90%. But it is still alive with help by the Japanese government.

Posted at Fri Dec 30 08:36:58 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1245856
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1245856satoshiFri Dec 30 08:36:58 UTC 2011satoshi : Do You Want to Marry a Mad Woman? (0)For example, those mothers have the body of their children covered up completely with rain coats with a hood and have them with doubled flu masks on when they go out even if it is clear weather, and they wash the body of them with bottled water every time they are back home. They say they want to leave Tokyo for somewhere at a distance left their husband behind in Tokyo. They try to protect their children from radioactivity with every possible means. I guess those mothers look mad from the view of their husbands, so they are always quarreling with each other.

Is it simply unhappy because those husbands by accident chose with those mothers? I think those women should have been ordinary women before the Fukushima accident.

Posted at Fri Dec 30 05:26:40 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1245673
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1245673satoshiFri Dec 30 05:26:40 UTC 2011satoshi : The Difference b/w Berlin and Sapporo in the Winter (0)However, there is a big difference between Berlin and Sapporo. You can’t ride a bicycle in the winter without spike tires in Sapporo.

Posted at Fri Dec 30 03:05:07 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1245529
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1245529satoshiFri Dec 30 03:05:07 UTC 2011satoshi : Why Do You Study Economics? (2)I would say the reason is:People are often attracted by opinions that are easier to understand, but economics prevents people from having that temptation. Most daily opinions are “what something should be” and “what is desirable”. Instead, economics coldly answers you can just get “what something cannot help becoming”. For example, the difference between “globalism” and “anti-globalism” are similar to them. Also, the attack by French President Sarközy on financial markets shows that he is confusing “what he doesn’t like” with “what he cannot control”.

Posted at Mon Dec 26 08:30:33 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1240839
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1240839satoshiMon Dec 26 08:30:33 UTC 2011satoshi : The 25th is not Christmas Day in Japan. (0)Posted at Sun Dec 25 01:28:54 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1239254
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1239254satoshiSun Dec 25 01:28:54 UTC 2011satoshi : Adult Competencies 大人力 (0)I would feel that somebody is not 大人, for example, when he is eager to ask and know something that is not “necessary” just after he comes to know me. For example: On chat, you want to see photos of the other sex whom you have just begin to talk to. It is natural that you want to know if the person you are talking is beautiful or not, but asking it immediately is childish. I think that you should first wait until the person you are talking to begins to talk unless that information is “necessary” to both he/she and you.

As you may know, generally, the Japanese people stay 子供 longer than the people in western countries. That has both advantages and disadvantages. I think that one of the advantages is that it is it that has produced Japanese anime.

Posted at Sat Dec 24 02:15:42 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1238149
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1238149satoshiSat Dec 24 02:15:42 UTC 2011satoshi : A public service worker out-of-pocketed 68 thousand dollars. (0)Posted at Tue Dec 20 15:43:20 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1234106
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1234106satoshiTue Dec 20 15:43:20 UTC 2011satoshi : I saw a crying machine at a subway station. (8)
This morning, when I saw a machine for fare adjustment at a subway station (the picture one), I thought, why it was crying. The white flag seemed to show a facemark crying tears like ＼(x_x)／When I got close to it, it looked like something different. Is it an image of a panda?

Posted at Tue Dec 13 04:20:05 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1224118
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1224118satoshiTue Dec 13 04:20:05 UTC 2011satoshi : Do you want your children to go to universities? (2)The “61%” mothers fact reminds me of Takagi Shujin's mother in the manga and anime Bakuman. She was an ex-school teacher and her only wish was that her son, Shujin, would go to a famous university. She wouldn’t care at all about what Shujin wanted to do. Her husband once worked for a bank, which means, in anime, he was a member of the elite, but he was fired due to an internal dispute in the company. Accordingly, Shujin’s mother wished for Shujin to take her husband’s revenge. That is very odd, but it sounds possible to the “61%” mothers.

Posted at Sat Dec 10 15:49:26 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1220730
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1220730satoshiSat Dec 10 15:49:26 UTC 2011satoshi : 仲間由紀恵 Has Irregular Teeth (6)
I am not familiar with talents in the world, but yesterday, I was surprised to see that 仲間由紀恵 (Nakama Yukie), the 2nd most popular among all actresses in 2010 in the Talent Power Ranking, had irregular teeth. I don’t know whether she's always had teeth like this, but it is true that many Japanese people care about their teeth less than the people in the US.

By the way, did you see, in the NY Metro, UNIQLO posters using models of different races? I thought that the woman like Japanese or Korean was the most beautiful. However, you may have to care about her row of teeth if she is Japanese and you are American.

Posted at Sat Dec 10 13:24:46 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1220526
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1220526satoshiSat Dec 10 13:24:46 UTC 2011satoshi : The People in Tokyo Dislike Commerce (3)The Japanese economy is concentrated in the capital city, unlike the US, China, etc; in the US, there are many cities that hold many major enterprises, but in Japan, most of those are in Tokyo. I think that this fact is reducing vitality and diversity of Japanese economy. To begin with, I think that the people in Tokyo dislike commerce (商い). They often think that commerce -related jobs are considered low-prestige jobs since they are young. Actually, I thought that and I was happy that my ancestors were samurai, not merchants (あきんど). あきんど sounds like disparaging words.

However, the situation is quite different in Osaka. Unfortunately, Osaka has been hovering around in a bad economic status, but it is true that the Tokyo model does not work well any more. It is quite possible that we need the revival of Osaka if we want Japan full of vitality.

I wrote this entry as I read the following saying in a news article about kimono:Kimono doesn’t become kimono until customers put them on. There must be customers who buy them if you create good ones. It is important that money goes around between buyers and creators. (着物はお客様が袖を通して初めて着物になる。良い物をつくれば必ず買ってくださる方はいる。結果としてお金が回ることが大切です)The speaker is at the Takashimaya department store, founded in 1821 in Kyoto.

Posted at Sat Dec 10 12:54:02 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1220478
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1220478satoshiSat Dec 10 12:54:02 UTC 2011satoshi : “Japanese people walk uglily.” (3)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g109mCHQhQYFurther, it seems that what the then people most demanded for shoes was not to insulate or protect their feet from the ground, but rather to touch and grab the ground. The linked video shows that people walk with their toes projecting out of footwear. Those are waraji (草鞋), not zouri (草履). They walk as if to grab the ground. This walking makes it possible to catch an enemy, such as a cat or tiger, in a flash. The shoes show a close relationship to the samurai way of fighting with the katana. I heard that the ancient Japanese people, not present-day Japanese, walked with their center of gravity on the toes unlike people in Europe, China, etc, who instead place it on the heel when walking.

The way Japanese people walk has probably changed, but I heard that many people outside Japan often say that the Japanese people still walk differently, or in an ugly way.

Posted at Sun Dec 04 13:58:13 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1212035
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1212035satoshiSun Dec 04 13:58:13 UTC 2011satoshi : Knowing Poor (2)http://www.atmarkit.co.jp/fwin2k/itpropower/admin-kun/295/adminkun295.htmlThat is completely wrong. News articles that you can read free on the net are a small part of the whole ones that newpaper companies are providing. That is, there are new digital divides that only you youselsef don’t know about. Digital technology has reduced the price of information, so people can obtain more information inexpensively, but more than a few people, mainly young ones, are unable to make good use of it because of being too fugal with small amounts of money.

Posted at Thu Dec 01 06:13:38 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1207543
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1207543satoshiThu Dec 01 06:13:38 UTC 2011satoshi : Something Interesting in NY Metro (8)
In the City of New York, this is what I came across in a car on the metro. The same kind of advice was on a metrocard I got.

Well, there is no notice in Japanese. I want to think that Japanese people won’t do such a thing, but that perhaps means that there are few Japanese Americans in NYC.

Posted at Sat Nov 26 17:40:53 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1201054
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1201054satoshiSat Nov 26 17:40:53 UTC 2011satoshi : Some of ANA’s flights are giving you power outlets by every seats. (3)However, I came across a ticket with the same flight as mine 130 dollars lower the next day I bought mine.

As far as I could see, ANA’s economy class (in the line between Tokyo and NY) is the best currently. (I bought the cheaper American’s one.) The reason is that they give wider pitches between before and behind (they gave up the middle class between economy and business, and made economy seats wider.) and power ports (in the normal form, not ones for planes) on all seats.

One of the worst ones is JAL’s.

Posted at Sat Oct 29 08:53:06 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1160556
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1160556satoshiSat Oct 29 08:53:06 UTC 2011satoshi : Would you want to work for Mitsubishi Corporation (三菱商事)? (2)
Recently, Japanese enterprises have been saying that they can’t employ Japanese students because their performance is too poor compared with foreign students in Japan. In turn, the enterprises claim they want to positively employ more foreign students.

I, however, think that what they are acutually saying and what they are doing is different. I learned many of the enterprises that will take part in a company information session next month in Boston require native-level Japanese, in addition to English at a business level. By contrast, companies such as Goldman Sachs (Japan), JPMorgan Chase (Japan) expect both Japanese and English at only a business level. This means many Japanese enterprises will, for example, turn Chinese Americans away at the door, even though they have studied Japanese at a high level.

I think those who are lacking in ability are not young students, but rather aged managers in Japanese enterprises.

cf.http://www.careerforum.net/event/bos/comlist.asp?lang=E

Posted at Mon Oct 24 11:00:58 UTC 2011]]>http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1154330
http://lang-8.com/satoshi/journals/1154330satoshiMon Oct 24 11:00:58 UTC 2011satoshi : Is “Set the slope of your pelvis right, and get good posture” fake science? (4)According to the article, you can know it as follows:Stand up alongside the wall distanced 5 cm away from it while standing on your heel and without shoes.Attach your head, hips, and back to the wall tightly.Insert your hand into the space between your waist and the wall.The desirable space is for one palm.